


The cats and the Christmas tree

by crazy_lion



Series: Warm light and cold Winter [1]
Category: Demi Lovato - Fandom
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Tree, Friendship, Mention of Eating Disorders, hard times for Demi and her family, references to anorexia and bulimia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 16:17:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19088614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazy_lion/pseuds/crazy_lion
Summary: It's almost been a year since Demi got out of the clinic, and she's struggling to find her balance. Andrew, her best friend, asks her to help with the Christmas tree, but they haven't met his cats yet...Disclaimer: Through this piece of writing, published without any lucrative aim, I have no intention to give a thruthful representation of this person's nature, nor offend her in any way.





	The cats and the Christmas tree

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the Italian version of this story and you can find it on www.efpfanfic.net, my nickname is crazy lion. My friend Emma (who is not a member of this site) translated it because I asked her and I checked and corrected the translation where necessary. We decided I could post it here.

**The cats and the Christmas tree**

 

"So," Andrew asked, "are you going to help me with the Christmas tree?"

"Of course!" she exclaimed, jumping for joy.

They were sitting on the couch and it was Christmas Eve. They were alone: the young man's parents were out to get the remaining presents, and his sister Carlie was out with some friends.

"Perfect, I'll go get what we need.” 

With that said, he went up to the attic.

Demi sighed. She and Andrew had been friends forever, and the six year age gap had never been much of a problem, not even when they were kids. She was now nineteen years old, had left the clinic a little over a year back, and well, it hadn't always been that easy. Ever since she had left Timberline Knolls, Demi wasn't hiding her problems anymore. She had never done that to her best friend, and on the contrary, he was the one who heard her confess, at just twelve years of age, that she was a cutter, only to then swear him to silence. Of course, Andrew had listened to her, and he would have never regretted that. Anyway, Demi's family had been aware of her problems for quite some time, so much so that Dianna had asked her to show her arms during all those months. It was then that she saw more scars, a sign that she had done it again, as well as a clear indication that her struggles with food weren't over yet. Anorexia and bulimia wouldn't leave her alone, even now that her relationship with food itself was slowly getting better. Those things always took time, according to the psychologist, the psychiatrist and the dietician she was followed by.

"I'm back!"

The young man got back into the room with a large box he opened to pick out the tree's various pieces, then he got a second one, full of decorations. Demi thought she wasn't alone in that daily battle, the hardest battle she had ever faced: the one against herself, against the Demi who threw up after stuffing her face wiith food, who didn't eat and only used laxatives, or counted calories, followed absurd diets, weighed herself God knew how many times a day, and did hours and hours of physical activity. The Demi who hated herself, who hated her body. That was the one girl she didn't want to be anymore. Her family was with her, Andrew was with her. Following the dietician's, the psychiatrist's and the psychologist's advice, who helped her when she broke down, she ate till she felt sick or she didn't want to, she felt a little better. She had spent her last Christmas in that clinic, and the actual one just had to be different. So, without a doubt in her mind, she pushed aside those sad thoughts and tried to focus on the present, on the here and now, just like she was learning to do.

"Hey, Dem?"

Andrew's voice distracted her.

"Yes, I'm here, sorry."

"I know what you're thinking about," her friend told her as he took her hand. "And I know you're still down most of the time, even if I can't imagine that because I've never been through it. But you're feeling better, I think.”

"Yes, that's it," the girl replied, speaking in a broken voice.

"You'll make it, okay? Slowly, one step at a time. You're not alone."

"I know."

"Get over here."

He hugged and she gasped, then started crying. She was afraid to relapse, of the future, of a thousand things, and the pain she felt was too strong to be kept inside. She didn't want to hide it anymore. Andrew stroked her back, making small circles with his fingers in an attempt to relax her. It seemed to work, because she stopped and calmed down, then started breathing normally again. She smiled faintly.

"Thanks."

"Don't even mention that. It comes from my heart, you know. Do you still want to do this? If not, we can just..."

"No," she cut him off. "Let's do it. Let's spend a nice afternoon together.”

She needed to stop thinking about bad stuff, about the fear of the future, to spend a normal Christmas afternoon.

"Okay then, let's start this out!"

Demi helped Andrew set up the tree, and when it was ready, they started hanging the Christmas lights.

"It's huge, and it will be wonderful," the young man said. He then looked at her, and their eyes met, as green mixed with brown. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," Demi answered and smiled at him.

"This will be a beautiful Christmas, I promise," he reassured her.

"I hope so."

Andrew knew how fragile and insecure Demi felt, and he couldn't imagine what she was going through, but he still wanted to help her and distract her for a while. He would have always been there for her. In the good moments, to do something to feel better, and in the bad ones, just to cry and let everything out. If Demi hadn't felt like decorating with him, then he would have dropped the idea. But she was okay with it, and that meant she was trying to do something to feel better. It was another, yet another step towards healing. He admired her for her strength. She had suffered and often still did, but she never backed down, never gave up. It had always been like that between them, and it would have always been for the rest of eternity, because that was what friendship was about: respect, comprehension and love.

After fixing the lights, they started hanging the silver ribbons, and that's when Jack and Chloe, Andrew's two beautiful cats, walked in. They were twins, and they were both grey. They were a little over three years old, and since they were nothing but kittens, they had been prancing around the house as if they owned it, just like most cats actually do.

"Hi babies!" the young man said, greeting them as he drew closer to pet their soft fur.

The cats meowed in response and Jack licked his hand, while Chloe wasn't as nice to Demi, and in fact turned her little head away when she tried to pet her.

"Well, would you look at that! So you don't love me, do you? Huh? Huh?" she asked, joking and scratching her ears.

That cat was a lot more independent and less cuddly than her brother, but still capable of loving the ones who gave her love and affection. The cats walked towards the box and investigated it with curiosity.

"Get ready," Andrew told Demi, sighing and running a hand through his brown hair, "chaos will now begin."

After a while, he just couldn't keep a straight face and started laughing. Demi joined in because she knew what was about to go down. Both of them wanted to enjoy the show, if so it could be called. Jack put a paw in the box, moving the balls around, while Chloe seemed a lot more interested in the ribbons still in there, and in the ones hanging from the tree. As a matter of fact, to those more than anything, since she started swinging them around without her usual grace. The sound they made and the sunlight up against them was just too much of a temptation for her, so much so that she couldn't stop looking at those reflections. She seemed enchanted, ecstatic, and both Andrew and Demi smiled as they watched her. Despite, when she hit them harder with her paw, her owner was quick to reprimand her.

"No!" he exclaimed, serious. "We don't do that."

The cat just couldn't understand, of course, but she had to figure out what she could and couldn't do, one way or another. When Chloe, still stubborn, moved those ribbons around once again, Demi clapped loudly to get her away, but she, totally unfazed, stayed where she was. As soon as the two friends started haning the balls, though, all Hell broke loose. The cats dangled them rather dangerously, and not just the big ones hanged on the lower branches, but also the medium and the little ones, leaping up to reach them.

"We can't work like this!"

Demi was exhausted. They had been working way slower ever since the cats had walked into the living room. They didn't just dangle the balls, but also pulled at the light strings and touched every other decoration with their paws, including the ones that were still in the box, since they also jumped in for God knew what reason. Despite everything, it was nice to have them around. Demi loved cats in general, but Andrew's ones in particular, and she wanted to have some, one day. With the cats around, though, that simple task seemed harder than ever, and it took a lot of time to finish it. Once it was all over, the tree was as beautiful as Andrew had said, who left her friend the honor of placing the star at the very top. To do so, Demi had to climb on a chair, but once she was done, they both clapped their hands feeling proud of themselves and of their results. In spite of that, the happiest ones were really Jack and Chloe who, while the two humans sat on the couch to watch television, started running around and hunting each other, choosing the Christmas tree as the perfect hiding spot. They tried to climb inside it, but they were too big and heavy, and decided to let up when they found out the branches seemed to crack and bend under their weight. In fact, all they did was hide under, clawing and biting each other without getting hurt.

"You know," Demi told Andrew, "I remember they used to get into it a few years ago."

"That's true. They were just kittens, a few months old, and it was their first Christmas with us after I found them on the street. And once, while we were having lunch, my parents, Carlie and I heard noises coming from the tree, and the branches were moving.”

They both burst out laughing. Demi thought it was nice to really laugh for once, without always feeling some sort of weight on her heart. Andrew was the only one with whom, throught thick and thin, she had really laughed. And now that she was feeling better, she enjoyed those moments even more.

"Then..." she asked laughing, "what... what happened? Please, say it again!"

"We just looked inside and saw Jack and Chloe hiding in there, as if that was the most comfortable place in the world. They did it so many times that year, and our reprimands never worked."

They wholeheartedly laughed again, cracking up and gasping for breath. When they recovered, the two young ones joined hands, then a hug followed. It was a hug full of love, because friendship is a kind of love, and they deeply believed that. That sweet moment was interrupted by the falling of another three balls, but before Andrew could stand up and reprimand the cats, even though he didn't like doing it, another sound, louder and more intense, cut the silence. One of them, no one knew who, had knocked the tree over. The balls had bounced everywhere around the room, and a few ribbons and light strings had come loose. Andrew and Demi talked to each other by sharing a look, as if to say:

"What do we do now?"

They had worked so hard and it was all in vain.

The young man wanted to scream, but kept himself from doing so to avoid hurting his friend. She had always been against him telling the cats off. Despite that, he stomped his foot on the ground, and both out of fear and knowledge of having done something wrong, the cats ran away without a second thought.

"What now?" Andrew asked.

"Now," replied Demi, "we do it all over again, even if we're tired. After all, these things are bound to happen when you put up a Christmas tree with cats around."

Far away from disheartened, the two of them worked together until everything was back into place. The cats got back to the living room, and after playing for a while they lounged around on the sofa, thinking cuddles were better than playtime. Sooner or later, they would have returned to the scene of the "crime" anyway, because for cats balls are too much of a temptation.

**Author's Note:**

> Note:  
> Jack and Chloe have the same fur color and personality of my own cats, and in fact that's exactly how they behave whenever my family and I put up the Christmas tree.


End file.
